


More than we know

by navaan



Category: Hellblazer
Genre: Childhood, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Gen Work, POV Female Character, Yuletide 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 21:16:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2826377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cheryl just wants her own happy family and the bliss of a normal life.  That doesn't mean she doesn't love her fuck-up of a brother who lives a weird life she doesn't even begin to understand. And she'll love her daughter no matter what. </p><p>Some moments from the life of Cheryl Masters née Constantine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More than we know

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chicafrom3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chicafrom3/gifts).



When her mother had been pregnant with what she was told would be her new little sister or brother, Cheryl had followed her around all day, fascinated by all the changes. Her mother had smiled at her and talked of the time when it had been Cheryl herself growing inside her womb. She'd been so very lovely, even though Cheryl remembered that her father had grown more and more restless and her parents had often sent her away to talk between themselves.

Despite all this, her mother had seemed happy, expecting her new child with a joy of a loving mother.

And Cheryl thought of her often. She'd looked forward to have another little one to coddle, she was sure of it, had wanted this child, would have loved it like she had loved Cheryl herself.

She had to think about her now, too, as John snuck out of the kitchen nearly without making a sound to avoid their father, who had just returned home. 

“Always sneakin' about, useless little blighter,” her father muttered. “What's he up to now?”

Cheryl shrugged, sure that her little brother had simply no interest in being in close range of their father.

She was never sure what to do about all this. Her father had changed, or maybe all their lives had simply changed for the worse when mum had died. It felt that way to her. “I'll go look after him,” she said, sure that it was not a good idea for John to get in trouble when their dad was in a mood already. 

She found him in his room, half hidden beneath his bed. He was sorting through a little box, looking surly. When she came in he looked up at her, nothing more than a snotty nosed little boy, and waited. She could see that he had lined up four similarly shaped stones in front of himself. He must have picked them up in the street.

“What's that?”

“Stones,” he said and turned away from her.

“Where'd you get them?”

He shrugged and looked at her over his shoulder. “Found me,” he said and she stared. Kids, were always making up stories. “Tell me things,” he added.

“Don't make up stuff,” she chided.

He shrugged again. “I'm just playing,” he said and pursed his lips. Sometimes he scared her a little, looking at her, much too young, but as if he was much older than her. 

“Can I play?” she asked, not really interested in playing with her brother, but at a loss of what to do downstairs where her dad was mucking about. 

He considered that for a moment, before he took up a stone and held it out to her on the palm of his hand. Understanding the gesture she took it up, and looked at it. It wasn't anything special, just a random stone. No dirt was clinging to it, as if the boy had taken the time to clean it. Maybe he'd taken it from the beach the last time they'd been to visit auntie. 

“Hold it to your ear,” he instructed.

Trying to humour him, she did.

“What's it saying?” he asked.

“It's not a sea shell, John,” she said with a frown. “There's nothing to hear. It's just a stone, like.”

He frowned at her and shrugged, picked up another stone to hold it to his own ear and looked at her. In fact he was staring, really focused, as if he was straining to listen. “Is there nothing different about your stone?” he asked, without moving his hand away.

She put it in the middle of her hand to look at it more closely this time and then shook her head. “Just a stone,” she said and put it back in line with the others. 

“Yeah,” he said and shrugged. “Just a stone.” But she had a feeling that he was still imagining that he'd found a treasure. 

She ruffled his hair then, the way mummy had done with her sometimes. 

John would never have a memory like that of her, only knew his dad and the aunts, but not their lovely mum, who'd always made Cheryl happy. John had only her.

* * *

Her brother could be a bloody nuisance. He got into trouble all the time. He developed some weird interests and Cheryl liked to pretend she knew nothing about it. Her own life was complicated enough, without looking at the strange drawings and books that sometimes piqued out of whatever hiding places that John had quickly and carelessly stuffed them in. 

She was old enough now to understand that John hadn't had it easy from the start. 

That didn't count on the days when she was feeling like her own life was falling apart, though, when he was nothing but a little shit who was getting in trouble on purpose.

It counted on the days, when Cheryl was feeling good about herself, and John followed her around like a needy puppy.

They were both missing the warmth of a normal family and were coping in their own ways. 

But she was growing up and soon she would be able to change that for herself. Boys were looking at her. She could have a family of her own soon.

And she was looking forward to it, remembering her mother's smile and her loving embrace.

* * *

When Gemma was born, Cheryl thought her life could now finally be what she always wanted it to be. She could be a real mother. She had so much love to give. She could be more than the sister who was too young to give her brother the stability that nobody else could have given him; more than the mother who was too young to give her child exactly what it needed.

Gemma wasn't the first baby she'd held in her arms, loving it without question. But this time there was no desperation, only joy. The tears were all for joy and not for the little boy who'd never know her name.

Tony smiled at them proudly, happy that both his wife and daughter were fine. Even her dad looked happy and relieved.

Only John hadn't turned up - and as her life was finally getting more stable it was perhaps for the best. From now on Gemma was her most important responsibility and that meant her well being had to come first. She still missed him, felt rejected at the thought that her little brother preferred to run wild with his crowd of misfits in London than to even ask how she and the baby were.

Tony brought them home.

Two days later a little package arrived in the mail. The only indication of the sender was the scrawly handwriting she recognized instantly. There was absolutely no telling how John could have even known. Perhaps this was coincident, meant as little, random gift for his pregnant sister and not yet born child. Perhaps he'd heard from someone.

You never knew with John.

Inside the sloppily patched up package she found a lovely mobile with little stars, a sun and a moon.

Little Gemma fell asleep staring at it happily every night after.

* * *

Tony didn't want to even hear from John after what happened in Newcastle and Cheryl found it hard to cope with the details on her own. They never really talked about what had happened with John, had heard what the authorities and Ravenscar personal had let them know, but none of that had ever been a complete account of what had really happened, who had really been responsible. The last thing she heard John had been spouting delusions about demons from hell killing that little girl.

One psychologist had told her, that John must have seen something truly terrible, that it was likely that he had been a witness to something horrible and cruel, but that it was unlikely that he'd been the one to murder the child.

She never questioned that. Never wanted to think of her brother as someone who could actually go that far. Tony already thought he was so caught up in his Satanism that nothing was beyond him.

Her little baby was a blessing in those days and she could focus all her attention and love on her.

Gemma pretty much occupied Cheryl's every waking hour and that was enough.

But when John simply turned up for Gemma's third birthday, wearing a blue suit and trench coat, even a tie, Cheryl knew now wasn't the tome to ask about what had really happened at Newcastle either. John looked handsome, clean and surprisingly normal, stable. She knew whatever else he was, he was no murderer and apparently he wasn't a raving lunatic either.

John's life had always been a mess.

“He's my brother,” she told Tony when he started to argue. “Family matters. That's what you always say.”

“It matters. But we are your family now, me and Gemma.”

“So are your mother and my dad. He is my _brother_.”

“We don't know _what_ he is,” Tony muttered, but pulled back from the fight.

“I do,” she said and meant it, although she was never sure she truly did. There was so much that John held close to himself, kept secret, away from her.

John stayed.

Cheryl watched him skid around on his knees with Gemma. “I had no idea you were good with kids,” she said cautiously.

“I'm awful with kids,” he said and grinned. Gemma disagreed, giggling loudly as he picked her up.

Tony watched the whole scene uneasily from his place at the table. Their eyes meet when John looked away and didn't catch it. 

She knew what Tony was thinking.

But she couldn't stand the thought of taking the opportunity to have a family with them away from her brother. Ravenscar had changed him and perhaps it could be for the better.

* * *

He came back from a trip to America and brought Gemma a little plant, which he claimed, he'd picked up in a Lousiana swamp. Gemma tended it rigorously.

He brought back small figurines of animals and Gemma loved playing with them.

Tony never approved. “What business has a good-for-nothing slob like you travelling round the world?”

“Extending my horizon,” John retorted tartly.

“I'm sure,” Tony said and his expression darkened.

“You should try it, mate. It does wonders.”

Cheryl gave both of them one single warning glance. There would be no disagreements today.

So John excused himself to smoke outside a minute later. “He's my brother,” she reminded Tony, because she felt he needed the reminder once in a while. “I don't approve of most of the things he's done and these are only the things I know about. But he's my brother.”

“I know.” Tony nodded. “I know.”

He was a good man. Perhaps it was time to go outside and remind John that Tony was her husband and Gemma's father and that meant something, too.

“What are you doing really?” she asked him, when they stopped arguing about Tony and John lighted another cigarette.

“Cheryl, look. You don't want to know.”

“Are you in trouble again?”

He sighed. “You know me. Why do you even ask?”

“Can't you for once just get your life in order? Stop all the shady business?”

He tried to smile. “There's just the thing. I want to. Or at least sometimes I want to. But then it finds me again wherever I go. It's too late to stop.”

She was reminded of little John sitting on his bedroom floor, talking to stones.

“It's not a matter of what I want to do. It's just a matter of what is and what I make of it,” he said cryptically. “I am who I am now.”

“And what is that, John?”

“John Constantine,” he said. “Conman, mage, all around fuck-up.”

It was the truth and what he believed in. It was enough to tell her that he was still moving in circles she'd rather not even hear about. Things had gone wrong for them a long time ago and John had chosen his path no matter what.

She knew she couldn't help if he didn't want to change. “I'd smack you, if I though it would do you some good.”

“Had plenty of that, sis,” John said flippantly, putting the cigarette back between his lips and letting it dangle from the corner of his mouth. “It's how this thing bloody well started, sunshine.”

* * *

She caught Gemma in the garden when she was five, sitting in the middle of the lawn and talking to thin air. “Gemma, baby, what are you doing?”

The little girl looked up at her with a serious expression. She was holding a little pebble in her left hand. “Playing,” she said.

“What do you have there?” she asked and smiled, trying to show her that she was only interested, not disapproving.

“It's just a stone,” Gemma said and held it out to her. “It knows secrets.”

The answer made her stomach clench. “What kind of secrets?” 

Gemma shrugged and Cheryl was reminded again of her little brother, playing in his own imaginary world. “I'm just playing,” she said and smiled brightly. 

It was too much, too similar, too familiar. She threw her arms out and pulled her little baby against her chest. “You know mummy loves you, right?” she asked and kissed her brow.

* * *

Tony had never really recovered from the way things had ended with the Resurrection Crusade. In hindsight Cheryl understood how big of an influence the community had been on him, probably as far back as their first meeting. Tony had been a good Christian when they'd met and his unambiguous morals and aims had been attractive to her then. She'd had reason to not trust men and had been looking for someone to build a real family with, a better family than the one she'd grown up in perhaps. A stable one at the very least.

But Gemma had been touched by something. Cheryl knew it. John had been so different as child that sometimes she could fool herself into believing that her daughter wasn't going down the same road. Her little baby was normal.

“She attracts the uncanny,” Tony said one evening. “Since that pervert tried to kill her. Maybe since before. Then she sees your dad's ghost...”

Cheryl knew what he was implying. “Don't be daft. She's just a teenager,” she said. “All teenagers are troubled.”

She decided not to push, not to worry before there was anything to worry about. People had always pushed John and the only thing that had accomplished was his running away from home for the first time at 14. She wouldn't be angry at Gemma.

That was until she found a board with occult markings in Gemma's room with a photograph pinned to the middle. 

This wasn't child's play anymore.

And she knew who to confront about it.

* * *

John set her straight. There was no sign of Gemma having any interest in magic after her uncle had rushed in and taken care of things. Cheryl was still surprised at how this had turned out. Apparently the thought of Gemma dabbling with “magic” had scared John as much as it scared her. He was always so flippant about it that she'd never expected that he didn't wish his own life on anybody else.

At least he wasn't alone now.

“You're not mad at me?” Gemma asked in a small voice when they were alone in the kitchen that evening. 

“No, Gemma,” she said. “Everyone was always angry at your uncle John and see where it got him.”

Gemma grimaced, her short brown hair falling into her eyes, so it was hard to see them. “I'm sorry, mum. I didn't want to upset you.”

“I know, love.” She hugged her, her fast growing up daughter, her baby. “And whatever you do and whatever mistakes you make, you'll always be my little girl.”

Gemma hugged back. 

Someday soon her little daughter would leave her home and set out on her own to make her own life and she could only hope that she'd done right by her. “I just want to be me,” Gemma said against her chest, hiding her face against her mother's chest. “Why is that so hard?”

 _I am who I am now_ , John had told her once. And wasn't that just true for all of them, for better or worse.

“You will be someday,” she whispered. “It's not always be so hard.”

At least they'd always have this.


End file.
